Record drop in unemployment in December

The labour market in December maintained the positive trend of most of 2021 and closed the year with minimum levels of unemployment. Thus, December was the tenth consecutive month with a drop in unemployment in Catalonia to figures not recorded since before the outbreak of the financial crisis of 2008.

Unemployment in Catalonia fell by 0.18% last month compared to November, which represents 664 fewer people out of work than a month ago. In total, the year closed with 369,158 people out of work, according to data published by the Ministry of Labour. This means that throughout the year the number of unemployed Catalans was reduced by 128,453 people, a 25.8% drop, the largest in history.

At Spanish level, the number of unemployed was 3,105,905 people, 76,782 fewer than in November and 782,232 fewer than a year ago. These are the lowest levels of unemployment both in Catalonia and in Spain as a whole in a month of December since 2007, when the crisis had not yet begun.

By provinces, Tarragona is the only one where unemployment increased last month, with 257 more people unemployed, taking the total to 47,260; however, it ended 2021 with 13,535 fewer unemployed than a year ago, a 22.2% decrease. At the other extreme, the biggest year-on-year fall was the 28% drop recorded in Girona, which ended the year with 35,763 unemployed (a month-on-month fall of 217 and a year-on-year fall of 13,909). As for Lleida, the reduction in the number of unemployed was 145 compared to November and 6,210 compared to December 2020, leaving the total number of unemployed at 20,346.

In Barcelona, the reduction was 26.2% year-on-year, i.e. 94,799 fewer unemployed than a year ago. The province ended December with 265,789 unemployed, 559 less than the previous month.